In some ways, I saw the garden as a metaphor for certain aspects of my life. A leader must also tend his garden; he, too, plants seeds, and then watches, cultivates, and harvests the result. Like the gardener, a leader must take responsibility for what he cultivates; he must mind his work, try to repel enemies, preserve what can be preserved, and eliminate what cannot succeed. –Nelson Mandela
In his memoir, A Long Walk to Freedom (1994), Nelson Mandela highlights the unique and beautiful qualities of a garden and the critical work required to nurture it. He metaphorically compares gardening to leadership, asserting that the role of a leader calls for planning, watching, cultivating, harvesting, repelling, and preserving.
In this sense, educators might also see themselves as gardeners. This is a central concept in Unearthing Joy (Muhammad, 2023), which explores the profound connection between humanity and the Earth and urges educators to reconnect to the Earth, the land, themselves, and one another. They are encouraged to reclaim and embody joy as both a way of doing and a state of being.
We, the Genius Garden Collective, are a group of educators who see the genius in children and have experienced great joy in teaching them. Guided by the Historically Responsive Literacy (HRL) framework, we teach and lead to nurture the innate genius within our communities, specifically our young people. Our collective work is guided by the garden metaphor, and we invite fellow educators to see themselves as “seed people” (Delpit, 2003) whose purpose is to nurture their students’ identity development, criticality, intellect, skills, and joy (Muhammad, 2020; 2023).
We are gardeners—educators with experiences as teachers, students, leaders, teacher educators, parents, and administrators—who have come together to conceptualize what joy can mean for educators and students. Joy offers us the ability to reach our highest potential and feel a sense of safety in our bodies. It creates the conditions for us to climb, reach new heights, and awaken the human soul. Embodying joy impacts how we see our collective work in education, and how we teach and lead within our school communities. What if nurturing joy was our ultimate purpose in education?
When educators embody and embed joy into their work, they can cultivate their own 'genius garden' in their classroom.
Here, we present nine conceptualizations of “joy as” (a way of doing and a state of being), along with reflective questions to help guide educators in applying joy to their professional practice and their lives. We believe that when educators embody and embed joy into their work, they can cultivate their own “genius garden” in their classroom.
1. Joy as Remembering
As gardeners of education nourishing future generations, we are responsible for knowing our students’ identities, legacies, and who they belong to. We cannot begin to teach our students to know themselves or their joy unless we first understand “who and whose” they are and who they can become. Our students come from genius, justice, and joy. Joy as remembering requires us, as the Akan people of Ghana believed, “to retrieve or to go back and get it” (translated Sankofa). To remember—or (re)member, as Cynthia Dillard (2022) writes—is to know our histories and reconnect ourselves to our lineages and ancestral inheritance. To remember is to honor the histories and identities of those who have come before us, those who have dreamed of a future uninhibited and filled with possibility.
We find joy by remembering and acknowledging that we all have something positive to contribute to this world. Those who teach with love help students connect and identify with their purpose and their ancestral traditions, creating the conditions for joy in the classroom. Joy as remembering cultivates internal and external spaces of collective liberation where we can lean into knowing ourselves, loving one another, and building our capacity to heal. Creating ecosystems of joy as remembering requires intentionality and a daily commitment to learning from our individual and collective histories that propel us to freedom dream, together.
Reflection Question: Considering joy as remembering, how can we co-create spaces for students, staff, and community members to share and celebrate their individual and collective histories in a way that propels us to freedom dream, together?
2. Joy as Gathering
Joy as gathering emerges when we view our schools and districts as places to cultivate the unique potential of every student. Educators who create opportunities for authentic communication among students and adults lay the foundation for everyone to experience joy. Leaders are responsible for building deliberate structures for professional learning, racial literacy, and data analysis based on culturally and historically responsive practices that guarantee all community members feel a sense of belonging.
Reflection Question: Considering joy as gathering, how can we intentionally structure systems within schools and districts to ensure that the operational models of learning create a sense of joy and belonging for everyone?
3. Joy as Welcoming
Joy as welcoming is the sacred act of greeting. This goes deeper than the usual “hello.” It’s recognizing the worth and dignity of each person, captured so well by the Zulu greeting of Sawubona, meaning “I see you.” There are subtle and explicit ways educators can show our young people that they see who they are and whose they are. Just as gardeners greet their garden by seeing (and seeding) each plant in their fullness, teachers must see students as connected to the past, present, and future, thereby approaching them with intention, love, and care. The gardener must be ready to receive all the ways the flowers might show up—with joy, with heartache, with ease, or with pain.
The gardener must be ready to receive all the ways the flowers might show up—with joy, with heartache, with ease, or with pain.
Opening up professional development sessions by asking participants “How’s your heart?” is one example of joy as welcoming. Joy as welcoming extends beyond the classroom garden to the ecosystem of the whole school community—students, families, faculty, and staff. Gardeners assure all plants have access to the nutrients they need to flourish in the same way gardeners of the classroom or school community nurture voice and agency to help elevate the system to benefit everyone. This attunement establishes an integrated ecosystem of gardens.
Reflection Question: Considering joy as welcoming, what are ways we can connect with each person in our school community, so they feel seen and have a sense of belonging?
4. Joy as Tending
Joy as tending means discerning and responding to the unique experiences, wants, and needs of each plant in the garden. As gardeners, teachers must remain curious because even when we know our students, so much happens under the surface that we may not know. One flower might be ready to bloom, while another is struggling to establish its roots. Yet both need love and nurturing. This approach invites us to slow down and be attuned to each student intentionally. Conditions in life change daily and their impact varies based on each flower’s location and identity—there is a complexity to care.
When students feel seen and heard by caring educators, the many facets of their identities are made visible, deeply valued, and celebrated within the garden. Joy as tending means making the necessary shifts in arrangement and energy so a dynamic range of student expression can show up in the garden. Students can be quiet or loud, calm or vibrant, peaceful or agitated, harmonious or discordant—yet they all know they matter and are worthy of joy. The critical work of joy is both personal and communal because it evolves constantly yet remains a consistent and grounding force.
Reflection Question: Considering joy as tending, what practices and routines help us slow down to be present with and responsive to each other?
5. Joy as Loving
Joy as loving means that educators show compassion for their students and embrace each of their unique abilities as genius. This approach to teaching and learning requires that educators create a community of care in the classroom. In communities of care, students are uplifted, supported, and inspired to reach their highest potential; and their well-being is nurtured with the expectation that they will flourish, even during challenging times. In a classroom where joy as loving is practiced, connections between students and their teachers are infused with kindness and warmth. Teachers feel appreciated, students feel loved, and each have a deep responsibility for maintaining the loving community. Love creates an atmosphere where the genius of every child is easily seen, and this creates an environment where teachers and students can heal and thrive.
Reflection Question: Considering joy as loving, recognizing the unique nature of every child’s genius, how can we create classrooms and schools where love is at the heart of every interaction?
6. Joy as Healing
Joy as healing means breathing new life into wounded stories. These are stories of students not feeling accepted, of being judged, of being physically and psychologically harmed by teachers, peers, or even themselves as they internalize the oppressive messages they receive. Joy as healing turns our pain into purpose. Its warmth thaws deep roots within us, a somatic sting that helps us see and feel the genius and diverse beauty in and around us. Joy as healing requires vulnerability and courage; it builds the resilience necessary to stay committed in pursuing freedom and new possibilities.
As we embrace the flowers and their stories in our classroom gardens, we can resist the suffocating pressure to fit into a singular mold. Nurturing growth and genius disrupts the “industrial normalcy” of production—like Tupac’s rose breaking through concrete (Shakur, 2006). Joy invites us to tend our gardens as wounded healers who “dedicate their lives to helping others find wholeness, joy, and hope even as they navigate violent circumstances” (Acosta, n.d.). We can pursue joy as healing by attuning to students’ stories. We can cultivate conditions for connections through the nourishment of laughter, music, and movement.
Reflection Question: Considering joy as healing, how can we strengthen “the roots” of teachers and students to empower growth in love within and beyond our classrooms each day?
7. Joy as Thriving
Joy as thriving is deeply connected to our existence and desire for individual and collective well-being. Joy should be a central pursuit of our lives. When we feel joy, our bodies experience ease—temporary relief from the perpetual violence caused by systems of harm and oppression. As gardeners in the field of education, we must tend to the soils of our communities, specifically our young people, by cultivating spaces that radically care for their bodies, minds, and spirits. Healthy soil is the essential source for the stability and sustainability of a garden. Joy as thriving invites us to tend to our bodies, the soil, and make intentional decisions to keep it safe. Safe to breathe. To pause. To resist. To refuse. To fumble. To rest. To love. And to thrive in community, together.
Joy should be a central pursuit of our lives. When we feel joy, our bodies experience ease.
Those who teach and lead must move toward a healing praxis that sees and honors the fullness of our collective humanity and understands that each of us matters; we flourish when we are well—mind, body, and spirit. When we thrive in this way, we blossom, and we are able to come up with solutions and create new ideas for how to shift the system of education to make it equitable for all students.
Reflection Question: Considering joy as thriving, how are we, as educators, cultivating spaces that radically care for our students and their well-being?
8. Joy as Creating
Joy as creating means nurturing endless possibilities in young people. While tending to the people in our garden, every gardener will shift and till the collective soil to cultivate and unearth the genius of their hearts, minds, and spirits. The medicinal properties of the various flowers in any garden heal the body, while the beauty can bring calm to the spirit. Joy as creating demands we amplify joy and design learning spaces where students see the beauty of themselves and others. Curriculum and instruction must spread joy and elevate truthful images of those who have been historically excluded, harmed, and misrepresented.
We unearth the power to create and remember that we are the ones who must save education. By centering joy in our garden, we center the voices of students who describe the feeling of joy through the language of poetry and the power of their pens. Joy as creating invites us to cultivate learning spaces where our young people write, think, and read to understand the world, examine systems of harm, and resist the status quo.
The following poem is a collection of lines written by students in Chelsey Love’s1 4th grade class, who were asked to reflect on “joy as” in their classroom environment. Each line is a contribution from a different student.
Joy as a safe place to learnJoy as scienceJoy as lifting othersJoy as a classroom of trust and careJoy as crying and singing alone or with my friendsJoy as working together to solve problemsJoy as Ubuntu
Reflection Question: Considering joy as creating, how can educators unearth, spark, and nurture possibilities in students’ minds, hearts, and spirits?
9. Joy as Dreaming
Children remind us daily what type of world they are capable of dreaming up. They come into classrooms with their full selves and vivid imaginations, and they challenge us to elevate our teaching and learning experiences for them. Joy as dreaming invites teachers to focus on more than the state objectives and standards scribbled on their lesson plans, the scripted rigid curriculum, or the academic ability of their students. Instead, educators must seek joy by working tirelessly to see what makes their students’ eyes sparkle and advocate for ways to sustain that sparkle by ensuring and securing access to resources, dismantling inequitable policies and creating supportive ones, listening to students’ voices, and continuously addressing students’ needs.
The following poem is a collection of lines from Stacey Joy’s 5th grade class, who call on all of us to dream for a joyous world.
Dreams for a Joyous WorldWe dream a world where love will blossom like flowersAnd peace will rejoice in its nameWe dream a world where all men and womenWill know that black is beautifulWe dream a world where honorable men will neverhang their headAnd like a plant, all men, women, and children will growMankind will need all of our collective talentWe dream of such a worldWe dream a world where racism is no longerNo other man will discriminate against you for yourskin colorWhere love will blossom like a lone roseAnd peace will rule the earthA world, we dream, where war will stopWhatever race you may be, you shall feel freeWe will share freedomAnd every human is filled with joy
Reflection Question: Considering joy as dreaming, how can educators pursue enriching experiences where students are seen as fully capable of chasing their dreams?
“Joy As” in Every Classroom
As gardeners of education who nurture future generations, we bear the responsibility of tending to our students’ soils. This necessitates unearthing and safeguarding their joy. Joy offers us the pathway to ascend, reach our highest potential, and to see the beauty of our collective humanity.
Our hope is that these nine conceptualizations of “joy as” will help those who teach, lead, and love young people realize that joy and learning are interconnected. When we feel joy, the brain releases neurotransmitters, like dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins that allow us to think, relax, process information, and feel good. In essence, joy creates the conditions for us to grow, develop, and flourish.
We need joy in our educational spaces more than ever, and we hope you will join us in envisioning “joy as” in every classroom and school community. Educational spaces that prioritize joy have a profound effect on how young people see themselves, their communities, and their collective responsibility to social action and justice.
